A thought about post counts. Options

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In my short experience as a CreateBlog community member, I have realized post statistics do play a significant role in the user's experience since they grant access to extra features and are a requisite (that can be bypassed in exceptional occasions) to apply for staff membership. This is the not the first place where I have seen this system being used, and thusly it is not the first time I pass this thought to the community to consider. Without further ado, I'll proceed to explain my position about this subject.

In my opinion, post quotas only manage to make users work enough to meet them in order to enjoy the benefits they get for reaching the 50, 100, etc.., post mark. Such acting is not necessarily linked to making users involved in improving the community, but rather in seeking personal goals that may or may not transcend (positive or negatively) onto the rest of users.

That is mainly because apart from the site's general rules, there's not a standard establishing how a person should fill the demanded rate. Since it's pretty easy to maintain a high PPD ratio without adding anything that contributes to the site in general while avoiding the violation of any general rule, the point of having a posts limit becomes kind of moot, in the end.

Lastly, keeping a post count policy seems to have stemmed an underlying rivalry between users based upon the number of posts when it comes to, for example, hiring sessions. Despite knowing it's not a must-meet requirement, people seem to focus first on their PPD then on evaluating whether their skills can be of any help to Createblog or not. And that is pretty counterproductive to the purpose of selecting people willing to sacrifice time and efforts for an online community.

[*mona lisa*]

Dani's idea is certainly interesting. I really like the idea of having new members getting used to the community and forums first before gaining the advanced member features, as you call them. It also gives them some time to get used to the rules.Question is, how long before a member is allowed to apply for official-memberdom? I just checked and neither the member profile nor the admincp tells me exactly when a member joined. Only proof of that is the month that is shown in a member profile. :x

I just want to comment on what was mentioned about making the promotion to an Official Member more personal. Not only would it be ridiculous to actually site there counting up to 200 posts (haha, imagine that), but then it comes down to dividing the posts between those that count and those that don't. Should we be that strict on quality of posts?

I'm not sure I completely understand your second objective. I think I do but I want to make sure I understand it completely before responding. Do you mind clarifying that a bit? As for the third objective, I'm not sure how we can decrease the number of users who continually make fly-by-night posts. Posts, perhaps, but not members. It slightly depends on what you mean by fly-by-night posts. Are they the "useless" posts made in such topics as Dani listed or those that don't really contribute to the community? The issue of moving such topics to the Sandbox (which consists of forum games and where posts do not count) but there's always been a division of opinions on that.

Okay, my fingers hurt. :x

[*Libertie*]

Dani's idea is certainly interesting. I really like the idea of having new members getting used to the community and forums first before gaining the advanced member features, as you call them. It also gives them some time to get used to the rules.Question is, how long before a member is allowed to apply for official-memberdom? I just checked and neither the member profile nor the admincp tells me exactly when a member joined. Only proof of that is the month that is shown in a member profile. :x

I would say the timespan from the user's first post to their most recent one. That seems to be the most accurate way to go about doing it. >.<

I just want to comment on what was mentioned about making the promotion to an Official Member more personal. Not only would it be ridiculous to actually site there counting up to 200 posts (haha, imagine that), but then it comes down to dividing the posts between those that count and those that don't. Should we be that strict on quality of posts?

I did mention that if more emphasis was put on the quality of posts, the actual number of posts wouldn't me quite as important. However, I did also point out how much work that would be for you and Kiera and that having a defined set of guidelines rather than "this is the general idea for who should get promoted to Official Member" would be more appropriate considering the number of applicants we get. My post was actually developed as I went along, so I added that last part as an alternative.

All that having been said, I've always been in favor of having a forum where people can do whatever they want within the PG-13 guidelines. If this is the Sandbox, fine, but the forum games people got REALLY peeved at us when we started moving bad topics from the Lounge into the Sandbox. I'd like to see more feedback on this from the forum games/Sandbox regulars, but I'm still up for the idea of having a spam forum, which obviously does not add to post counts.

PS: And Jordi, anyone who sits through one of these epic long dinner convos will never want to come back to visit.